Sailing and Grailing Across the Atlantic

The notorious pirate Blackbeard claimed he buried his treasure "where none but Satan and myself can find it," leading to inevitable suggestions that he dug the pit but there is no evidence to support this. Perhaps the most far-fetched theory is that English philosopher Francis Bacon used the pit to hide documents proving him to be the author of William Shakespeare's plays.

The pit may contain nothing at all. Since the 1970s fewer people have believed the pit has any connection to pirates, due to the massive scale of the subterranean structure and its similarity to other natural formations found in the area.

Given the limited size of the original pit it may be noteworthy that no debris, lost tools or other items mentioned in the early accounts have been found. There is no surviving evidence that any elements described in the original tale (such as oak platforms, an inscribed stone, or even the tree itself) ever existed, although few details have changed since the original version of the story was published.